Remapping worth it?

[Klunt Bumskrint]

Just got me a Jaguar XF S 3L. Considering remapping as apparently it helps with fuel economy. Anyone have experience of this? Never done it myself and it seems you get more power too but I'm worried about parts wear etc as she already has quite a bit of torque.

Superchips have a sale on £225

 

[robj20]

Don't forget the extra insurance for a modification. Often cheaper in the long run to have just purchased the faster model of the car.
But yes it's going to increase wear by some amount, it can improve mpg but only if you don't use the extra power.

 

[BUDFORCE]

LV insurance don't seem to mind remaps oddly and have been quite cheap for me.

I'm basically locked in to LV because every other insurer was £200-£300 more a year.

I did it on my Volvo went from 150 to 180hp and it's not a huge difference, a bit more power on the higher rpm, but it's marginal.

I got the official polestar map from Volvo as well, and the car has been fine for many years, I wouldn't go to a third party place, even though I'm sure most of them are perfectly fine.

But basically I wouldn't bother, I won't ever do it again on another car.

 

[FerretBoy]

Has anyone ever seen an increase in efficiency with a remap? I get the feeling it's more theoretical than practical. My experience over two cars is they make the car more thirsty.

 

[peige]

I have to smile at "improves economy", like that's ever the reason people do it and in real terms do you really improve the mpg over the weekly drive, man maths at its best

In real terms you are not going to get an improvement in mpg and you will shorten the life of the engine, but you will have more power which will be nice. Being worth doing is another thing.

 

[Haze]

Has anyone ever seen an increase in efficiency with a remap? I get the feeling it's more theoretical than practical. My experience over two cars is they make the car more thirsty.

How many cars have you had remapped for mpg? Sounds like you are just talking a load of ****

 

[Haze]

And don't use superchips ffs

You need to go somewhere that maps your car on a rolling road

 

[MrRockliffe]

Considering remapping as apparently it helps with fuel economy.

It might technically, it won’t realistically. You’ll be driving quicker all the time, hence using more fuel.

Easier way to improve economy is keeping tyres inflated properly and accelerating/driving more smoothly.

 

[bainbridge]

I've had a remap for 5 years, it's driven daily and the occasional track day, and so far so good. It's a little mx5 and I got a switchable Ecutek map with race rom features.

Economy has indeed improved:

Stock mpg: high 20s day to day and low 30s on a long run.

Remap: low 30s day to day and mid to high 30s on a run.

I got 15mpg from 4 laps of the Nurburgring

The power increase was modest, 158bhp to 185ish, but the drivability improvement over the stock map is huge. The tuning guy did lots of small adjustments between Dyno runs to get it how he wanted it.

From memory he did the following:

Loaded in his best saved map for my engine as a starting point.

Then in between Dyno runs he did:

Fuelling
Cams
Knock

Then he did another run and then did:

Knock
Cams
Fuelling

The above order might be wrong.

In addition to the above, he did the following:

Removed the factory 90% throttle restriction for first and second gear.

Ironed out a flat spot at 4000rpm.

Decreased the fuelling at idle by 25%.

At £570 it wasn't cheap, but IMO well worth it.

 

[Street]

I think I've had every car I've owned in about the last 20 years remapped at some point and have just recently had my current one done. I've only ever gone for stage 1 and kept it at sensible numbers.

 

[tom_e]

I've had a remap for 5 years, it's driven daily and the occasional track day, and so far so good. It's a little mx5 and I got a switchable Ecutek map with race rom features.

Economy has indeed improved:

Stock mpg: high 20s day to day and low 30s on a long run.

Remap: low 30s day to day and mid to high 30s on a run.

I got 15mpg from 4 laps of the Nurburgring

The power increase was modest, 158bhp to 185ish, but the drivability improvement over the stock map is huge. The tuning guy did lots of small adjustments between Dyno runs to get it how he wanted it.

From memory he did the following:

Loaded in his best saved map for my engine as a starting point.

Then in between Dyno runs he did:

Fuelling
Cams
Knock

Then he did another run and then did:

Knock
Cams
Fuelling

The above order might be wrong.

In addition to the above, he did the following:

Removed the factory 90% throttle restriction for first and second gear.

Ironed out a flat spot at 4000rpm.

Decreased the fuelling at idle by 25%.

At £570 it wasn't cheap, but IMO well worth it.

This is what you need, not some from stock map just bunged on and hope for the best.

 

[cuke2u]

A remap, or even today's tuning boxes, can improve over a factory stock tuning making the engine power and torque delivery more broadly spread over the rpm range.
It isn't always just about performance..

 

[dave28]

Was worth it on a camper van 2.3L Turbo. Pulls up hills with ease now, very nice

 

[Greebo]

Has anyone ever seen an increase in efficiency with a remap? I get the feeling it's more theoretical than practical. My experience over two cars is they make the car more thirsty.

Reality is that you end up using more of that extra power/performance so you see no gains in mpg

 

[Armageus]

It might technically, it won’t realistically. You’ll be driving quicker all the time, hence using more fuel.

Why would you be driving quicker all the time? Does having a remap cause your speedo to stop working?

Has anyone ever seen an increase in efficiency with a remap? I get the feeling it's more theoretical than practical.

Of course it's possible to gain efficiency (in the same way that it's possible to gain performance), by reducing the fairly wide tolerances that ECUs have a result of normally being designed for multiple markets (and the varying fuel quality, emissions standards, and environmental factors like target air temperatures and the like).
Anything that changes the torque curve (e.g. adds more torque at lower rpm, means in theory you can change gear earlier, and get into the more efficient ratios earlier)

It's why there are even dedicated companies who offer remaps for commercial vehicles and fleets, specifically to try and improve fleet fuel economy

Spoiler

e.g.

Fleet Remapping | 01733 808 549

Fleet Remapping. We have an established reputation for providing safe, accurate custom maps for a variety of vehicles. Call 01733 808 549 today!

www.ecomaxtuning.co.uk

Fleet & Commercial Remapping - Top Gear Tuning

Topgear Tuning is a leader within the ECU remapping industry and by careful reprogramming of your vehicle fleet our qualified technicians can deliver fuel savings to your business of up to 15%

topgear-tuning.com

Fleet Remapping | MTech Tuning

Maximize your fleet's performance with MTech Tuning. Our fleet remapping solutions optimize efficiency and boost overall vehicle performance. Contact us today.

www.mtechtuning.co.uk

Fleet Tuning: From 5 to 50,000 Vehicles

fuel efficiency of fleet vehicle, fuel efficiency of company cars; fuel efficiency of vans and commercial vehicles,, engine remapping for fuel economy

viezu.com

 

[MrRockliffe]

Why would you be driving quicker all the time? Does having a remap cause your speedo to stop working?

Because:

Throttle pedal mapping - you’re used to adding a given input to accelerate, likely to use more power more often

More power available - when accelerating flat out you’ll be using more fuel



Haven’t ever seen any reliable data to prove that remaps make a car more efficient.



Manufacturers, for years, have had a primary focus on fuel efficiency for selling cars. Do you not think that if it was a simple case of software tuning to increase efficiency, that they’d have done it?


I’m very happy to be proven wrong, just have only seen anecdotal evidence on the subject, when there are many other factors which can influence efficiency more.

 

[Rroff]

LV insurance don't seem to mind remaps oddly and have been quite cheap for me.

I'm basically locked in to LV because every other insurer was £200-£300 more a year.

I did it on my Volvo went from 150 to 180hp and it's not a huge difference, a bit more power on the higher rpm, but it's marginal.

I got the official polestar map from Volvo as well, and the car has been fine for many years, I wouldn't go to a third party place, even though I'm sure most of them are perfectly fine.

But basically I wouldn't bother, I won't ever do it again on another car.

Yeah I added modifications on my pickup with Admiral and didn't cost me anything more than the admin fee surprisingly. Obviously that will be a varied story but it doesn't necessarily add anything.

 

[sovietspybob]

You really won't get any more efficiency from a remap, you can't change physics, the engine will still have the same thermal efficiency and mechanical losses its always had. It'll probably be marginally less thermally efficient afterwards as the boost will have been turned up in the remap so you'll get a bit more heat generated.

What will probably happen though is your trip computer will report higher MPG as there'll be more air entering the engine and it usually measures MPG by calculating air pumped into the engine and doing a load of maths to show you the read out, it doesn't actually measure fuel used in most cases.

But if you want a remap for better drivability or more power then sure they can work really well for that but as you've alluded to you do put more strain on the components so they will wear out quicker or very rarely sometimes fail altogether.

 

[Rroff]

In my experience efficiency will depend on a lot of factors like how well the existing map meshes with your driving style and usage, etc. or how well implemented the stock one is you can't just slap a generic "more efficient" map on a car.

On my pickup when they did the facelift they officially remapped the normal driving mode to be an eco mode of sorts which does marginally improve MPG but also makes it feel a bit gutless around 30-40MPH and sticking it into sport doesn't actually hugely change the MPG while feeling far more dynamic and responsive.

 

[Armageus]

Manufacturers, for years, have had a primary focus on fuel efficiency for selling cars. Do you not think that if it was a simple case of software tuning to increase efficiency, that they’d have done it?

If they knew exactly where the car was going to end up, and what kind of customer was driving it then yes.

Instead they apply maps that have a huge amount of safety built in, to help stop the engine grenading itself when run on poor quality fuel, torque reduced to ensure that clutches and gearboxes last a reasonable length of time (even when driven by 70 year old doris revving the guts off it), and with emissions set to meet targets in all countries etc.